The Proletariat and its Ally in the Russian Revolution

Written:Written December 10 (23), 1906Published:Published December 20, 1906 inProletary, No. 10.

      Published according to the newspaper text.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 11,

      pages365-375.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Suchis the heading Karl Kautsky gave to the last chapter of his article
“The Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution”,
published in the latest numbers ofNeue Zeit.[1]As in the
case of other works of Kautsky’s, a Russian translation of this article will
undoubtedly soon be published. This is an article that all Social-Democrats
should certainly read, not because aGermantheoretician of Marxism can
be expected to supply answers to the current problems ofourtactics
(the Russian Social-Democrats would not be worth much if they waited for such
answers from afar), but because Kautsky gives us a remarkably logical analysis
of theunderlying principlesof the whole tactics of the
Social-Democrats in the Russian bourgeois revolution. To all members of our
Party, to all class-conscious workers, overburdened with the humdrum tasks of
everyday work, stunned with the hackneyed banalities of unscrupulous
bourgeois-liberal scribblers, such works by thoughtful, well-informed and
experienced Social-Democrats are especially valuable, for they help us to rise
above everyday matters, to get an insight into the fundamental questions of the
tactics of the proletariat, and to obtain a clearer idea of the theoretical
tendencies and the actual mode of thought of the various trends in the
Social-Democratic movement.

Kautsky’slatest article is particularly important in this respect, for it
enables us to coin pare thecharacterof the questions put by
Plekhanov to Kautsky (among other foreign socialists) with Kautsky’smethodof answering some of these questions.

Plekhanov,whom the Cadet Melgunov, in today’sTovarishch(December
    10), aptly called the“formerleader and theoretician of
    Russian Social-Democracy”, asked Kautsky:

(1) What is the “general character” of the Russian revolution:
    bourgeois or socialist.

(2) What should be the attitude of the Social-Democrats towards the bourgeois
    democrats? and

(3) What tactics should the Social-Democrats adopt in the Duma elections.

Theleader of the Russian opportunists was angling for Kautsky’s approval of
blocs with the Cadets. The leader of the German revolutionary Social-Democrats
guessed that the questioner was trying to suggest his reply on a point not
directly mentioned in the questions, and preferred to answer Plekhanov with a
dispassionate, circumstantial, propagandistexplanationof how a
Marxist shouldformulatequestions concerning bourgeois revolution and
bourgeois democracy in general. Let us examine Kautsky’s explanation close]y.

Itwould be superficial to regard the Russian revolution merely as a movement
for the overthrow of absolutism. It must be regarded as the awakening of the
mass of the people to independent political activity. Such is Kautsky’s main
premise.

Thismeans the following. It would be a superficial analysis of the tasks of
the Social-Democratic movement that merely pointed to the attainment of
political liberty (the overthrow of absolutism) and to the “common”
character of this task for various classes. It is necessary to examine the
position of themasses, their objective conditions of life, the
different classes among them, thereal natureof the liberty for which
they arein factstriving. We must not deduce from a common phraseology
that there are common interests, nor must we conclude from “political
liberty”in generalthat there must be a joint struggle of
different classes. On the contrary, by a precise analysis of the position and
interests of the various classes, we must ascertain how far, and in what
respects, their fight for freedom, their aspirations for freedom, are identical,
or coincide (or whether they coincide at all). We must reason, not like the
Cadets, not like the liberals, not like Prokopovich & Co., but likeMarxists.

Next.If our point of departure is the interests of the masses, then the crux
of the Russian revolution is theagrarianquestion. We must judge of the defeat or victory of the revolution not
from government violence and the manifestations of “reaction”
(which engages all the attention of many of our Cadet-like Social-Democrats),
but from the position of the masses in their struggle for land.

Agricultureis the basis of the national economy of Russia. Agriculture is
declining, the peasants are ruined. Even liberals (Kautsky quotes the Cadets
Petrunkevich and Manuilov) realise this. Kautsky, however, is not content with
pointing to the unanimity of the liberals and the socialists onthispoint. He does not let this lead him to the Cadet conclusion: “Therefore,
the Social-Democrats should sup port the Cadets.” He at once proceeds to analyse
theclass interestsconcerned, and shows that the liberals willinevitablybe half-hearted in regard to the agrarian question. While
admitting the decline of agriculture in general, they fail to understand the
capitalist character of agriculture and the resulting problem of the special
causes which retard this capitalist, and not some other, evolution.

AndKautsky minutely analyses one of these special causes, namely, the shortage
of capital in Russia. Foreign capital plays a particularly important part in our
country. This retards the capitalist development of agriculture. Kautsky’s
conclusion is: “The decline of agriculture, alongside the growing strength
of the industrial proletariat, is the main cause of the present Russian
revolution.”

Yousee: Kautsky makes a careful and conscientious study of the specific
character of the bourgeois revolution in Russia and does not evade it as the
Cadets and the Cadet-like Social-Democrats do by doctrinaire references to the
“general character” of every bourgeois revolution.

Next,Kautsky analyses the solution of the agrarian question. Here, too, he is
not content with the stock liberal phrase: You see, even the Cadet Duma is in
favour of land for the peasants (see the writings of Plekhanov). No. He shows
that the mere increase in size of holdings is no good to the peasants unless
they obtain enormous financial assistance. The autocracy is incapable of really
helping the peasantry. And the liberals? They demand redemption payments. But
such compensation can only ruin the peasants. “Confiscationof
the large estates” (Kautsky’s italics) is the only way by whichthe peasant’s landholding can be substantially increased without imposing new
      burdens upon him. But the liberals are most emphatically opposed to
      confiscation.

Thisargument of Kautsky’s is worth considering in detail. Anyone at all
familiar with the party shadings in the revolutionary circles of Russia knows
that on this question of redemption payments the opportunists ofbothrevolutionary parties have not only been contaminated with the liberal view,
but have also distorted what Kautsky says in this connection. Our Mensheviks, at
the Unity Congress and at a number of meetings in St. Petersburg (e.g., Dan in
his reports on the Congress to the St. Petersburg workers in the summer),
criticised as wrong that clause of the agrarian programme which was adopted with
the support of the Bolsheviks, who categorically insisted on the substitution
of “confiscation” for “alienation” (see Maslov’s
original draft). Our Mensheviks said this was wrong, that only vulgar
revolutionaries could insist on confiscation, that for the social revolution it was
unimportant whether there was compensation or not, and in this connection they
referred to Kautsky’s pamphletThe Social Revolution, in which, with
reference to the socialist revolution in general, Kautsky explains that
compensation is permissible. And the Socialist-Revolutionary Mensheviks, and
the semi-Cadet Popular Socialists, have used exactly the same arguments to
defend their turn towards liberalism on the question of compensation (in one of
the issues ofNarodno-Sotsialisticheskoye Obozreniye[2]),

and they, too, cited Kautsky.

Kautskyis probably unaware of the behaviour of the Mensheviks on this
question, or of the significance of the policy pursued by the Popular Socialists
and their group. But in hisformulationof the question of compensation
in the Russian revolution he has again given all our opportunists an excellent
lesson on how one should not argue. It is wrong to draw a conclusion about
compensationin Russia in 1905-06fromgeneralpremises about
the relation between compensation and confiscation in various revolutions, or in
the socialist revolution in general. One must proceed the other way round. One
must ascertain which classes in Russia gave rise to the special features of our
formulation of the question of compensation and deduce the political significanceof this question in this revolution from the interests of these classes,
and only then decide whether the views held by the different parties are right
or wrong.

Itis quite obvious that, as a result of taking this course, Kautsky did notblurthe difference between the liberals and the revolutionaries on the
question of compensation (as the Plekhanovites and Popular Socialists always
do), but revealed thedepthof this difference. Plekhanov, in putting
his questions to Kautsky, concealed the difference between the
“opposition” and “revolutionary” movements by avoiding
concrete questions. Kautsky swept Plekhanov’s concealment aside, brought the
important question of compensation into the light of day, and showed Plekhanov
that not only the Black Hundreds,but the liberals as well, are
“in their own way” fighting against the revolutionary movement of
the peasants.

Kautskywrites: “Without the abolition of the standing army, and of naval
armament construction, without the confiscation of the entire property of the
royal family and of the monasteries, without state bankruptcy, without the
confiscation of the big monopolies, insofar as they are still in private hands, the
railways, oilfields, mines, iron and steel works, etc., it will be impossible to
obtain the enormous sums necessary to extricate Russian agriculture from its
terrible plight.”

Recallthe customary Menshevik talk about the utopian and visionary ideas of the
Bolsheviks; for instance, Plekhanov’s speeches at the Congress on the subject
of the demand that cardinal agrarian demands should be linked with cardinal
political issues (abolition of the standing army, election of officials by the
people, etc.). Plekhanov scoffed at the idea of abolishing the standing army and
of the people electing government officials! Plekhanov’s
“Sovremennaya Zhizn”[3]approvesthe line ofNashe
Dyelo, calling political opportunism “political materialism”
(??), counterposing it to “revolutionary romanticism”.

Itturns out that the circumspect Kautskygoes much furtherthan the
most extreme Bolshevik and makes far more “utopian” and
“romantic” (from the opportunist standpoint) demandsin
connection with the agrarian question!

Kautskydemands not only the confiscation of the landlords’ estates, not only
      the abolition of the standing army, but also theconfiscation of big
      capitalist monopolies!

AndKautsky quite logically observes immediately after the above-quoted passage:
it is clear, however, that the liberals are frightened by such gigantic tasks,
such radical changes in existing property relations. Basically, they want no
more than to continue the present policy without encroaching on the basis for
the exploitation of Russia by foreign capital. They are firmly in favour of a
standing army, which alone, in their opinion, can maintain order andsave
their property..."

Plekhanovprotests that he has not been treated fairly. He only asked Kautsky’s
opinion on the question of supporting the opposition parties in the Duma
elections, and he was given a reply on a different subject! Duma elections
and—the abolition of the standing army! What a freak of anarchist fancy,
what revolutionary romanticism instead of the “political
materialism” demanded by the opportunist!

ButKautsky continues his “tactless” criticism of the liberals in
answer to the question about the Duma elections. He accuses them of wanting to
go on extorting billions of rubles from the Russian people for armaments and
interest on loans.

“They [the liberals] imagine that the establishment of a
Duma will suffice to conjure billions of rubles out of the around.”
“Liberalism is just as incapable [of satisfying the Russian peasants] as
tsarism.” Kautsky devotes a special chapter to explaining the attitude of
liberalism to Social-Democracy. He points out that in Russia there are no
bourgeois democrats of the old type, among whom the urban petty bourgeoisie
occupied a primary place. In Russia, unlike the West, the urban petty
bourgeoisie “will never be a reliable support of the revolutionary
parties”.

“InRussia the firm backbone of a bourgeois democracy is absent”. Kautsky
draws this conclusion both from an analysis of the special position of the urban
petty bourgeoisie and from the consideration that the class antagonism between
the capitalists and the proletariat is now far more developed in Russia than it
was in the period of bourgeois revolutions of the “old type”. This
conclusion is of enormous importance. It forms the very kernel of Kautsky’s
“amendment”to Plekhanov’s formulation of the question, an amendment which is
virtually a radically different formulation.

Inhis questions Plekhanov employs theold typesof bourgeois
democracy, and nothing more. He uses a hackneyed term, quite forgetting to
determine on the basis ofRussiandata thedegreeof
democracy, and itsstability, etc. possessed by thedifferent
stratathat are now coming forward in Russia as bourgeois democrats. It is
Kautsky’s merit that he point ed to this basic omission of Plekhanov’s and
proceeded to explain to him in a practical manner themethodwhich must
be applied in order to reach a real understanding of bourgeois democracy in
Russia. And through Kautsky’s skilful analysis the outlines of thevitalsocial forces of Russia begin to emerge from the old, hackneyed
formula. the urban petty bourgeoisie; the landlord class, with its penny-worth
of liberalism and pounds-worth of support of the counter-revolutionary Black
Hundreds, the capitalists, with their mortal dread of the proletariat; and,
finally, the peasantry.

Thenebulous question of the attitude to be adopted to wards “bourgeois
democracy” (of the type found in France in the forties of the last
century?) has disappeared. The fog has been dispelled. It was this fog that our
Prokopoviches, Kuskovas, Izgoyevs, Struves and other liberals used to cloud the
vision of the people, and Plekhanov is now playing into their hands. In place of
the fog of old stereotyped formulas, a genuine Marxist analysis has shown us the
quite special relationships of the democracy of the various strata and
elements of the Russian bourgeoisie.

Bymeans of this analysis Kautsky determines that peculiar relation between
Russian liberalism and the revolutionary character of the peasants, which the
Cadets deliberately conceal, and to which many Social-Democrats are blind! ’The
more the peasants become revolutionary, the more do the big landowners become
reactionary, the more does liberalism cease to find in them the support it
previously had,the more unstable become the liberal parties, and the
more theliberal professors and lawyersin the towns shift-tothe
right, so as not to lose all connection with their previous mainstay." This
process “is only accelerating the bankruptcy of liberalism”.

Onlyafter laying bare the roots of thisbankruptcy of liberalismin
    the present Russian revolution does Kautsky proceed to give a direct answer
    to Plekhanov’s questions. Before answering the question whether we should
    support the “opposition”, we must understand (Kautsky explains)
    the class foundations and the class nature of this “opposition”
    (or Russian liberalism), and in what relation the development of the
    revolution and of the revolutionary classes stands to the position and
    interests of liberalism. In elucidatingthisat the outset, Kautsky
    proceeds,firstly, to reveal the bankruptcy of liberalism, and onlythento explain to the reader the question that interests
    Plekhanov: Should we support the opposition in the Duma elections? It is not
    surprising that Kautsky had no need to answer two-thirds of Plekhanov’s
    questions....

AlthoughKautsky’s answers do not satisfy Plekhanov, they will help the
rank-and-file Russian Social-Democrats to think properly.

(1)Is the revolution in Russia a bourgeois or a socialist revolution?

Thatis not the way to put the question, says Kautsky. That is the old
stereotyped way of putting it. Of course, the Russian revolution is not a
socialist revolution. The socialist dictatorship of the proletariat (its
“undivided sway”) is out of the question. But neither is it a bourgeois
revolution, for“the bourgeoisie is not one of the driving forces of
the present revolutionary movement in Russia”. “Wherever the
proletariat comes out independently, the bourgeoisie ceases to be a
revolutionary class.”

AndKautsky declares with a vehemence even greater than the
“tactlessness” the Bolsheviks usually display towards the liberals,
that our bourgeoisie fears revolution more than reaction; that it hates
absolutism because it engenders revolution; that it wants political freedomin order tostop the revolution! (And Plekhanov, in his questions,
naively identified the struggle of the opposition against the old order with the
struggle against the government’s attempts to crush the revolutionary movement!)

Thisfirst answer of Kautsky’s is a brilliant vindication of thefundamental
principlesof Bolshevik tactics. Beginning with the Geneva newspapersVperyodandProletary, and continuingwith the pamphletTwo Tactics, the Russian Bolsheviks havealwaysregarded as the main issue in their struggle against the
Mensheviks the Right-wing Social-Democrats’ distortion of the concept:
“bourgeois revolution”. We have said hundreds of times, and have
backed our statements with innumerable declarations by the Mensheviks, that to
interpret the category “bourgeois revolution” in the sense of
recognising the leadership and guiding role of the bourgeoisie in the Russian
revolution is to vulgarise Marxism. A bourgeois revolutionin spiteof
the instability of the bourgeoisie, byparalysingthe instability of
the bourgeoisie—that is how the Bolsheviks formulated the fundamental task
of the Social-Democrats in the revolution.

Kautsky’sanalysis satisfies us completely. He has fully confirmed our
contention that we are defending the position of revolutionary Social-Democracy
against opportunism, and not creating any “peculiar” Bolshevik
trend, and this confirmation is the more valuable for having been given by
expoundingthe essence of the matter, and not by a mere staff officer’s
“endorsement” of this or that group.

(2)Kautsky not only considers it “quite possible” that
    “in the course of the revolution victory will fall to the lot of
    the Social-Democratic Party”, but declares also that it is the
    duty of the Social-Democrats “to inspire their supporters with
    this confidence in victory, for it is impossible to fight successfully
    if one renounces victory before hand”.

Thisconclusion of Kautsky’s is a second brilliant vindication of Bolshevik
tactics. Anyone who is at all familiar with the publications of the two trends
in the Social-Democratic movement must know that the Mensheviks havemost
strenuouslydisputed the possibility and expediency of a Social-Democratic
victory in the present Russian revolution. As far back as the spring of 1905,
the Mensheviks at their conference (which Plekhanov, Axelrod and others
attended) adopted a resolution saying that the Social-Democratic Party mustnotstrive to win power. And since then this idea that the
Social-Democrats cannot strive for thevictoryof Social-Democracy in
the bourgeois revolution has run like ared(or black?) thread through
thewholeliterature and thewhole policyof Menshevism.

Thispolicy is opportunism. Thevictoryof Social-Democracy in the
    present Russian revolution isquite possible. It is our duty to
    inspire all adherents of the workers’ party with confidence inthisvictory; it is impossible to fight success fully if one
    renounces victory beforehand.

Thesesimple and obvious truths, which have been obscured by Plekhanov’s
sophistry and scholasticism, must be pondered over and mastered by the whole of
our Party.

(3)To imagine that “all the classes and parties which are striving for
    political freedom have simply to work together in order to achieve
    it”, means“seeing only the political surface of
    events”.

Thisis the third vindication of Bolshevism. A mere reference to the fact that
the Cadets “are fighting for freedom in their own way” is not enough
to justify joint action with them. This is the ABC of Marxism, which Plekhanov,
Axelrod and their admirers have temporarily obscured.

(4)Which class can help the Social-Democratic proletariat to achieve victory
    in the present revolution, can support the proletariat and determine the
    limits of the immediately realisable changes? In Kautsky’s opinion, this
    class is thepeasantry.Onlythis class has“stable,
    common economic interestswith the proletariat throughout thewholeperiod of the revolution”. “The common interests
    of the industrial proletariat and the peasants are the basis of the
    revolutionary strength of Russian Social-Democracy and of the possibility
    of its victory; but at the same time these common interests determine the
    limits within which this victory can be utilised”.

Thismeans: not the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, but the
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. In other words,
Kautsky has formulated the old premise underlying the whole tactics of the
revolutionary Social-Democrats, as distinguished from both the opportunists and
the “enthusiasts”. Marx said that every genuine and complete victory
of a revolution can only be a dictatorship,[4]having in mind, of course, the dictatorship (i.e., unrestricted power) of the
masses over the few, and not vice versa. But the important thing for us, of
course, is not any particular formulation of their tactics by the Bolsheviks,but theessenceof these tactics, which Kautsky hasentirelyendorsed.

Anyonewho wants to think like a Marxist and not like a Cadet about the role of
the proletariat in our revolution, and about its possible and necessary
“ally”, must come round to the views of revolutionary and not
opportunist Social Democracy on the principles of proletarian tactics.

[1]Die Neue Zeit(New Times)—a magazine of German
Social-Democrats, published in Stuttgart from 1883 to 1923. From the
second half of the
nineties onwards, after the death of F. Engels, the magazine regularly printed
articles by revisionists. During the imperialist world war of 1914-18, it
occupied a centrist, Kautskian position and supported the
social-chauvinists.

[2]Narodno-Sotsialisticheskoye Obozreniye(Popular-Socialist Review)— organ of the semi-Cadet “Popular
Socialist” Party, published
in St. Petersburg in 1906-07.

[3]Sovremennaya Zhizn(Contemporary Life)—a Menshevik magazine
published in Moscow from April 1906 to March 1907.

[4]Lenin is referring to Marx’s article “Krisis und
Konterrevolution” printed in theNeue Rheinische Zeitungon
September 14, 1848.